The group says pedestrians won’t be able to cross the busy road and that signalized turn lanes would be less expensive than the $5 million budgeted for roundabouts.

However, Supervisor Paul Sausville, R-Malta, says the project is already a done deal. A public hearing is scheduled for 6:55 p.m. Monday at Town Hall to discuss the town’s use of eminent domain to obtain property needed for roundabout construction.

“I cross that road every single day,” Woelfersheim said. “Something needs to be done, that’s for sure. I myself have had a couple of close calls. The answer is a not a roundabout. With a roundabout, the traffic never stops. We need a light there.

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Roundabouts are planned for the intersection of Round Lake and Raylinsky roads, just west of Northway Exit 11, and Round Lake Road and Chango Drive, about 1,000 farther west in front of a Hannaford Brothers supermarket, Chango Drive provides access to Chango Elementary School.

More than two dozen residents, from seniors to young children, carried protest signs as passing motorists honked their horns in a show of support. Signs had messages such as “People 1st, Cars 2nd” and “Shouldn’t My Safety Matter?”

“I have grandchildren who go to Chango school,” resident Murray Eitzmann said. “I’m opposed to the town making a wrong decision.”

Eitzmann said he would also lose part of his property to eminent domain, and that legal action is possible pending the outcome of Monday’s meeting.

“We hope it doesn’t come to that; that the town wakes up,” he said. “They’ve had blinders on since Day One.”

The Town Board approved roundabouts at a Dec. 30 meeting following a lengthy study by Albany-based Creighton Manning Engineering. Malta already has more than a half-dozen roundabouts, including one just east of Exit 11. Most, if not all, were built in response to increased traffic from GlobalFoundries at Luther Forest Technology Campus, which currently employs 5,000 factory, management and construction workers.

Sausville said roundabouts are safer than signalized intersections because vehicles don’t cross opposing lanes of traffic.

“There is a crossing light planned for the system,” he said.

The intersections need improving and eminent domain is required either way, with roundabouts or traffic lights, he said. Seven properties will be impacted by eminent domain. “We need to take right-of-way,” Sausville said. “We should break ground in the fall.”

The project will take about a year to complete, he said, and cost $5 million with 80 percent – $4 million – coming from the federal government. The town hopes to obtain another $750,000 from the state Department of Transportation. The town has set money aside for its share of the project from fees it collects from developers. The job would not raise taxes, Sausville said.

But opponents say traffic lights would cost $3.1 million and that the town only opted for roundabouts to take advantage of federal dollars. Neighbors say there haven’t been any serious accidents at the two intersections and that a roundabout simply won’t fit at the Chango Drive location.

Resident Chuck Waterstram said he felt it was important to join the protest, even if the project can’t be reversed.

“Just to let the Town Board know we’re still opposed to the plan, and that they should consider citizens’ opinions more in the future,” he said. “It’s a statement against the arrogance and inefficiency of government; inefficiency because a signalized intersection would solve the problem and cost a lot less.”